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Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Glitter Gradient Nails

I have had so many comments & questions about my most recent manicure, a teal polish with a copper glitter gradient on top, that I knew I had to post about it! I was even asked this weekend if I got the idea from Pinterest, but my friends & I have been doing manicures like this for quite some time.

A quick backstory about me & nail polish: I was a terrible, horrible nail biter my entire life, & I mean biting until my nails would bleed, until the last few months of college when I suddenly stopped cold turkey. I found that having my nails done nicely gave me incentive to let them grow, so I quickly mastered a variety of at-home manis and watched my polish collection grow from a couple of drugstore brand bottles to 150+ including OPI, Sephora, Butter London, Illamasqua & Julep (a lot of them have been gifted to me over the last few years! My friends are very aware of my affinity). Spending all my summer days working at a pool gave me some good practice with them, too.

This mani is pretty simple. I always start by wiping my nails with a swipe of polish remover to get rid of any dirt or soap/lotion residue, and follow up with two layers of base coat. I'm currently using Orly Bonder, pictured above, but my favorite is CND Stickey. I also only do one hand at a time, or I'll screw up the other one for sure! For this, I applied two even coats of polish and let it dry til it was just a little bit tacky, then I painted some of the glitter topcoat on the end of the cosmetic sponge and gently pushed it into the teal polish from the tip, working my way up until I covered about half the nail. Follow that up with two coats of Seche Vite, and voilà!